Media Buying Briefing: What buyers got out of the NewFronts and expect to happen in the upfronts

Buyers reached for this story generally shrugged their shoulders about any standout content but commended the increased effort to shore up measurement across myriad platforms as a way to demonstrate effectiveness. The growing appeal of social video as a valid channel to reach consumers also stood out. 

“Clients are really focused in not so much what’s new, but they’re asking what’s working and  where they can both get scale and business outcomes — everything to drive business outcome, and using data to be able to do that,” said one holding company investment executive who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely. “We’re ultimately trying to go from the old model to this new model, in which everything is outcome based across the board.”

The exec cautioned that there’s still a long way to go in measuring for outcomes. “You still have to go to two or three different partners to cobble together the measurement piece and ultimately what the outcome was,” said the exec. 

Doug Paladino, senior director of CTV and programmatic strategy at PMG, cited the greater number of closed-loop attribution options that can help to determine outcomes better, including Walmart and Vizio, Google and Kroger, as well as Amazon and LG. 

“A lot of it is just improving efficiency, and getting more confidence in CTV buying and better, digitizing the big screen,” said Paladino. As for Walmart/Vizio specifically, “if Walmart is going to be pushing Vizio operating systems on all TVs sold in Walmart, that’s a huge expected increase in logged in, known user audiences in CTV. That’s an exciting thing to just know more about who we’re reaching,” he added.

Measurement aside, media agencies assessed the content that was on offer. The first investment exec cited premium video tied to data that either has a retail media integration, tied to streaming or built into the creator ecosystem. According to a second holding company buyer, the social platforms did a solid job of pitching themselves as valid destinations of premium video — particularly TikTok. 

“Social platforms aren’t just leaning on their usual ‘culture happens here’ narrative. They’re making a direct effort to position themselves as premium video partners with social-first capabilities. Every major player is leaning into video and scale to capture the investment levels we think of for linear / online video,” said the buyer. “The narrative has evolved to ‘We deliver culture and mass reach,’ which is a big repositioning, especially compared to last year.”

Creators also have pushed themselves to the forefront of consideration when it comes to digital options across the NewFronts consideration set. Among multiple bullet points Steven Bloom, president of enterprise partnerships at Omnicom Media North America, and his team developed out of the NewFronts was the observation that “Creators are becoming the operation system of social — [they] are no longer a tactic; they are the infrastructure.”

Paladino also noted how creators represented more prominently across many NewFronts, from TikTok to YouTube and Tubi, among others.  

And then there’s the Upfronts

Regarding the upfront, a third holding company investment exec said the ongoing situation across the Middle East isn’t yet specifically being cited in budget forecasts that this exec has received from clients, but they are seeing some pull back of spending in a few categories for different business reasons.

Specifically, auto and spirits budgets are down slightly — the latter having more to do with changing alcohol consumption habits. On the other hand, this exec said tech and pharma advertisers appear ready to up their spending slightly, which makes sense given AI’s impact on both categories. And quick serve restaurants are all over the place, with some spending more mixed depending on the category. but again it’s not necessarily being attributed to middle east though.  For example pressures on alcohol are more likely due to consumer habits changing.

Emarketer marketing analyst Marisa Jones, in a LinkedIn post, cautioned that traditional media — linear TV in particular — is headed for rocky times ahead while digital video and mainstream CTV firms will fare much better. In sum, she exhorted marketers to “pressure-test budgets, build flexibility into media plans, and prioritize channels that will prove value quickly if macro conditions worsen.”

“A prolonged energy shock will see traditional media ad spending decline as economic stress accelerates cuts in channels that are harder to tie directly to performance. But amid this shock, digital advertising will prove resilient even if budgets are under pressure, as advertisers move faster toward channels that are measurable, flexible, and easier to optimize in real time,” wrote Jones, pointing to CTV as the primary beneficiary given consumer viewing habits shifting that way. 

More than anything, marketers, via their agency negotiators, want flexibility built into long term ad commitments. Steve Boehler, founder of consultancy Mercer Island Group, echoed the need for exit ramps in upfront deals if a seller wants marketers’ dollars — and for now he doesn’t see much pullback in expected spending. 

“It’s an interesting time to be a marketer or senior media exec,” said Boehler. “The economy and war have folks feeling unsettled, but budgets are holding for now. The sense we’re getting as marketers go into the upfronts is a focus on flexibility and enhanced expectations of big media to be better integrated and provide better measurement and outcomes. It’s unclear if budgets may start fraying as we approach the upfronts. They haven’t yet.”

Speaking of big media, one final thought: due to the size of the three main holdcos (Publicis Omnicom and WPP), and their need to find efficiencies of scale and pricing to satisfy their huge client bases (and make money along the way), the upfront negotiation process will likely drag on for longer than usual, said one independent agency buyer. 

“I think that will slow things down,” said the buyer. “I think that will hold things up in the marketplace. I think this will be a longer, dragged out marketplace.”

Color by numbers

Usher in the age of chatbot advertisers. An Axios story last week cited several OpenAI projections of ad revenue it plans to attract from opening its doors to advertisers. In a presentation to investors, the most public and controversial AI firm said it expects to attract $2.5 billion in ad revenue in 2026, and almost quintuple that in 2027 to $11 billion in 2027 and an astounding $25 billion in 2028 and $53 billion by 2029. According to Axios, those projections are based on OpenAI’s products getting used by 2.75 billion weekly users by 2030. Whether any of that actually comes to pass remains to be seen. 

Takeoff & landing

• As hinted at in last week’s briefing, Publicis landed Microsoft’s global media business, but agreed to a much larger strategic partnership to “build a full-stack marketing solution that unifies legacy systems, AI agents and identity-based data to accelerate marketing outcomes in the era of agentic AI,” according to a Publicis statement. 
• Omnicom, meantime, landed IBM’s global media business where its agency Initiative, didn’t already have the business (in EMEA), beating out Publicis and Dentsu. 
• WPP, shortly after landing Estée Lauder’s global media business, hired Anne-Isabelle Choueiri  to be its chief transformation officer, in charge of overseeing the implementation of Elevate28, the growth program under newish CEO Cindy Rose. Choueiri led led enterprise-wide strategic initiatives for Estée Lauder. 

Direct quote

“The two big things that are currently in every room that I’m being pushed into to discuss: way over on one side is AI … And way over on the other side is single creators. And this big chasm in the middle is called marketing. All of that stuff in the middle is where the trillion dollars of marketing sits, because AI is efficiency and creators are effectiveness, apparently.”

— David Shing, aka Shingy, digital prophet.

Speed reading

• Krystal Scanlon and Seb Joseph continued their deep coverage of OpenAI, with the late-week news that the massive AI firm quietly launched an ads manager. Scanlon also profiled OpenAI’s man in charge of ad sales generation, David Dugan. 
• Sam Bradley covered how brands including Ford and Nissan are using a newer form of branded entertainment, expressed through oddball sports, to get their messaging across. 
• I wrote a walkup to what attendees can expect at Possible in Miami, as the conference (for which Digiday is a media partner) expands in its fourth year.